We were told that if we went and got a college degree, we would have a well-paying, decent (which is to say, doesn't treat us like crap) job out the door and that the degree would pay for itself within a few years.

We were told this over and over and over again, and that, if you went for any other path, you were a fuckup.

What a scam it was.

I'd also add that IMO, it's also heavily caused by misalignment of social network personalization algorithms. It's very probable that someone developed a ML algorithm during the early years of FB/YT/Google (not LLM, just some kind of feedbacky ML), that takes data they have about you as input, and selects what posts to show you next to maximize your time spent scrolling on the app.

You have unimaginable amount of data (with literally billions of active users), and it could've been running and getting better for the last decade.

The algorithm gets better and better at gluing you to the screen, at manipulating and changing people. My theory is that one of the best ways how to keep someone glued to a social network is radicalization and introduction into a conspiraci theory. It probably removes you from "normal" people around you IRL, because you're now wierd, you feel smart because you've "figured out the truth", you don't spend time with people around you or read "traditional" media, because they are lying and don't get you, and the only safe space you have is the echo chamber on the social network. That sounds like a pretty good recipe how to keep people interacting on the platform, and there's not really a way how to prevent it, assuming it's a ML algorithm driving it. No one knows how it works, and it only works with one goal - maximize app time at all costs.

Just take a look how good some ML models are at the task of "text -> image". Now imagine it has billions of people and a decade to experiment, with a task "person -> next content to show". It's horrifying to think about what it would be able to manipulate you into, and it is even better at it that the image models, because it had exponentially more data and room to experiment in real time on real people.

Also - there's no way how to fight back. Even if you know about it, there are tens of thousands people like you, who are also "immune" to this approach. But the ML algorithm gets to experiment on them, and if there is a way how to manipulate even them, it will figure it out. Because it knows what approach won't work on people like you. The only way you can prevent this is by not using anything that has a personalized feed - no Google search, no FB wall, no YT recommendations, etc. This probably doesn't lead to radicalization in this case, because the goal is to keep you in the app, not radicalize. For now, at least. Thankfully, people managing the biggest social networks are reasonable people who are just running a business, and they have no reason to change the goal of the algorithm into something else than screen time, right?

The Dems are offering piecemeal incremental bland realistic changes that while certainly for the better, they won’t rock the boat too hard.

Hell, the Dems aren't really offering that, either. They are offering just enough to placate the masses, while still shoveling money into the pockets of billionaires.

ie, Dems are still offering bread and circuses, while the GOP is offering gladiator battles.

And I think this is where so much MAGA support comes from. They heavily lean into acknowledgement that things AREN'T good. They're BAD. You're NOT CRAZY for thinking they're FUCKED, and the urgency you feel is APPROPRIATE.

I think you're right that this is a big part of it. Most people seem to have some degree of understanding that they are fucked. But they don't know how to express it or what to do about it. The Republicans play on that inner anxiety, but the Democrats try to steer away from it. I don't want to say that the Democrats should be playing on people's anxieties the way the Republicans do, but it clearly works politically.

God. Damn. That is well said. And more succinct than I ever said it.

Well stated. But it still doesn’t explain why blowing up a bunch of strangers as you suicide out is the pick of the day.

I do think that boomers were one of the first generations to take a step in addressing it in some way. At least that is my impression from watching TV/movies; no boomers I was close to had the kind of income/insurance that would pay for therapists. Prior generations seem just have their men suffer in utter silence or be declared un-men.

I'm Gen X, I knew of a few people that were getting therapy/medication, but they were considered problem children by their parents/teachers/administrators. I don't know if they continued, and I don't know how many generations since have fared. I think there has been some efforts to shelter people more, but I don't know what kind of coping mechanisms people have when mom and dad are no longer there to shield them from life.

There seems to be few healthy (group) outlets for men to really turn to, though. Lots of things seem to get sublimated into spending of one kind or another - working on cars/trucks, guns, grilling meat, golf, are deemed acceptable if done on the weekend. Maybe a little bit of games. But most of these activities tend to be rather surface. Men tend to have less friends than women, and they really encouraged to cultivate them, in my experience (and societal norms seem to reflect this and/or reinforce this from what I can tell).

Michael Moore pointed this out over two decades ago, even if it was not gendered - the mass decline in activities like bowling, civic engagement, etc...was quite evident long before the Columbine shooting...